Contemporary art trends and news from Asia and beyond

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Art Radar Asia News conducts original research and scans global news sources to bring you selected topical stories about the taste-changing, news-making and the up and coming in Asian contemporary art.

Archive for the ‘Filipino’ Category

Tyler Rollins Fine Art has announced its 2010-2011 exhibition schedule. The gallery will present solo exhibitions by four of the most highly respected artists from the Southeast Asian region starting from 16 September, this year.

Tyler Rollins Fine Art is a gallery in New York’s Chelsea area that has a primary focus on contemporary Southeast Asian art; one of the art world’s most culturally diverse and dynamic areas. As the gallery says, its objective is to put the spotlight on some of the most exciting trends in contemporary art, drawing attention to the interconnectedness of today’s globalised art world and fostering inter-cultural dialogue between the East and West.

The gallery will first show the Filipino artist, Manuel Ocampo, the most internationally-know contemporary artist from the Philippines. Ocampo has been a vital presence on the international art scene for over twenty years and is known for fearlessly tackling the taboos and cherished icons of society and of the art world itself. Marking his sixtieth solo show, Ocampo will be presenting new paintings and woodcut panels featuring traditional Christian iconography combined with secular and political narratives.

“The theme that comes up again and again is of figures that connect to a sort of myth-induced stereotype, rendered iconic but bludgeoned into a farcical conceptual iconoclasm made absurd by its exaggerated impotence as a carrier of meaning or the esthetics of politics. The paintings are a comment on desire, as painting itself is an object accustomed to this wish of being desirous, yet in the series they have a knack of providing some difficulty to the viewer as the conventions of painting are dismantled to the point of ridicule.” Tyler Rollins Fine Art

Following Ocampo, is Vietnam’s most prominent female contemporary artist, Tiffany Chung. Chung, noted for her sculptures, videos, photographs and performance work, will showcase her works at Tyler Rollins from 14 November to 31 December this year. Inspired by maps of urban regions, Chung’s solo show at the gallery explores the topographic after-images of some of the past century’s most traumatic conflicts.

'Berlin Wall', 2010, embroidery, painted metal grommets, and buttons on canvas. The maps that Chung is showcasing tell us about our relations with the past and our visions of the future. Image courtesy of Tyler Rollins Fine Art.

Moving away from Southeast Asian art, Tyler Rollins Fine Art will also present works by Tracey Moffatt, an Australian artist who is one of today’s leading international visual artists working in photography, film and video. Many of her photographs and short films have achieved iconic status around the world; Moffatt takes her inspiration as much from popular culture and the idea of fame and celebrity as she does from art history.
In January 2011, Tyler Rollins will be featuring her recent photographic series,Plantation, as well as Other, the final work in her video series inspired by Hollywood films.

'Plantation (Diptych No. 1)', 2009, digital print with archival pigments. 'InkAid', watercolor paint and archival glue on handmade Chautara Lokta paper. Tracey Moffatt's eerie pictures delve into a troubled history of exploitation. The man in the image is an alien, an outsider who is not welcomed into the colonial-style house. Image courtesy of Tyler Rollins Fine Art.

As a finale to this artist line-up, Tyler Rollins will be presenting Agus Suwage from March to April, 2011. Suwage is often named as one of the most important Indonesian contemporary artists. Although little of his work has been seen in the U.S., it has been exhibited around the world over the past few decades and is included in most major collections and surveys of Indonesian contemporary art.

Suwage's paintings explore the predominant theme of the self-portrait, employing the artist’s own body and face in a number of guises to address questions of identity and change in his surrounding socio-cultural condition. 'Playing the Fool' (2004) is the artist’s continuing exploration into violence, pain and joy. Image courtesy of Tyler Rollins Fine Art.

In a recent Philippine Star article, Clarissa Chikiamco, a Manila-based art writer and independent curator, discussed the current difficult funding situation affecting Filipino independent art spaces, which parallels similar issues that arose in the Philippines fifty years ago.

Squeezed between “commercial gallery apparatus” and the “supposed behemoths of institutions”, independent art spaces, also called “artists-run or alternative”, are crucial for contemporary art as they “provide a more accessible environment ripe of the speculative”. However, as Chikiamco points out, three areas contribute to the inevitable fate of closure for independent art spaces.

Day-to-day expenses a struggle

First, lack of stable funding means that day-to-day expenses for these spaces are the most difficult to find.

Operational costs are the basic necessities which funding institutions nearly always shy away from, preferring instead to back output-type undertakings such as events or publications. Without stable funding time tick-tocks on the expiration date of these spaces, just like the legendary Philippine Art Gallery 50 years ago, need money ‘to pay for the light’.

Funding structure of NCCA needs a revamp

Second, Clarissa Chikiamco explains that the funding structure of the National Commission of Culture and the Arts (NCCA) needs to be re-examined. The strong case in point is Green Papaya Art Projects, an art space invited to attend the 2010 edition of “No Soul for Sale” at the Tate Modern, which aimed to showcase the “most exciting non-for-profit centres, alternative institutions and underground enterprises”. Each invited group had to secure their own funding to participate. Green Papaya’s request for funding to the NCCA was denied, strangely because the event wasn’t in the “list of prestigious international event”. Chikiomco notes that incidents like this reflect a deeper problem:

The schism between the NCCA and the community seems to have gotten wider in recent years, the government having an increasingly notorious reputation as a consistently unreliable source of support for the arts. Support in tangible materials is obviously in short supply but it goes beyond that to demonstrate a demoralizing lack of appreciation and understanding of the government of its country’s art scene.

Third, Chikiamco states that private support, as a strong alternative to government funding in countries where the latter is declining, cannot be depended on in the Philippines. The few businesses that support the arts are more concerned with name branding; company-sponsored art competitions are the major form of participation these businesses take.

She then explores ways to improve the Philippine art funding challenge. There is a need to channel funds and good intentions for the arts to meet the basic needs of the art scene. A spirit of philanthropy is needed, while the sponsorship practice must be professionally branded so that corporations are properly recognised. Private support can come in many forms: bequests given to museums, travel grants, residencies for local artists to exhibit abroad, or simply covering the overhead expenses for independent art spaces.

Clarissa Chikiamco ends the article on an inspiring note:

Grounded in concrete resources and a healthy sense of reality, an art scene can — and will — only progress as far as our vision can take us.

Founded in 2000 by Norberto Roldan and Donna Miranda, Green Papaya Art Projectsis the longest running independently run creative multidisciplinary platform in the Philippines. Its mission is to support and organise actions and propositions that explore tactical approaches to the production, dissemination, research and presentation of contemporary practices in varied artistic fields. It was the only Filipino group invited to “No Soul for Sale“ in 2010, billed by The New York Times as “the Olympics of nonprofit groups”.

Aiming to be at the forefront of Filipino contemporary art, mag:net has been a café, magazine/book/music/film store, exhibition space and a performance hub for many emerging local artists since the early 2000s. mag:net has eleven offshoots in Manila today, hosting exhibitions, film screenings, music and poetry readings and artist talks.

Over the years, their nicely run café business enables the gallery to stay independent and sustainable. Along with their carefully curated weekly changing events, this explains mag:net GALLERY’s successful management compared to other artist run spaces in the Phillipines and elsewhere.

Jucar Raquepo's 'Terror East', part of a current exhibition at mag:net GALLERY. Image courtesy of mag:net GALLERY.

Established in 2006 in Manila, Silverlens Foundation is a grant-awarding body for photography artists. It provides professional and financial support for these artists through completion, acquisition, and exhibition. The Foundation is currently establishing a lending collection of contemporary photography and reference library relevant to the Philippines. It also regularly organises art talks, film screenings, lectures and slide shows.

The two pioneering artist run independent spaces in the Philippines were Surrounded by Water and Big Sky Mind, founded in 1998 and 1999 respectively by Wire Tuazon and Ringo Bunoan.

They both formed a close-knit artists’ community and invited their artist friends to exhibit and congregate. The goal of these spaces was to promote contemporary art by engaging in dialogues, encouraging innovation and diversity in art and supporting young and less established artists. Artists who passed through these two doors often became noteworthy characters in the Manila art scene.

Both spaces are defunct now, as both artists’ agenda deviated after they moved into the “mainstream”. Bunoan works with Asia Art Archive while still working on her art. Tuazon is working on his paintings for important art centres in Asia, organising festivals, and curating exhibits.

In celebration of the Tate Modern‘s tenth birthday, thirteen Asian art institutions were invited to join global arts festival No Soul For Sale: A Festival of Independentsin early May this year. The event brought over seventy independent art spaces, non-profit organisations and artists’ collectives from across the world to the Turbine Hall, indicating which institutions the Tate considers leading in the global art scene.

Read on for more about the thirteen Asian art organisations in attendance at No Soul For Sale. (Listed in alphabetical order.)

98 Weeks – Beirut

Initiated in 2007 as an artist organisation devoted to research on one topic in depth for 98 weeks, 98 Weeks has also become a non-profit project space since 2009 and has been organising workshops, seminars, reading groups and other art activities in Beirut. The project space is committed to providing a gallery for artists to research and develop ideas, exhibitions and artworks; a platform where artists, cultural practitioners and neighbors are welcome to propose ideas and a space to enhance self organised initiatives and the sharing of artistic resources.

Arthub Asia – China

'Crazy English', a performance by the Shanghai-based Chinese artist Zhou Xiaohu, was staged in No Soul For Sale 2010

Being a multi-disciplinary organisation dedicated to creating arts in China and the rest of Asia, Arthub Asia is devoted to initiating and delivering ambitious projects through a sustained dialogue with visual, performance and new media artists as well as collaborations with museums and public/private spaces and institutions. It is a collaborative production lab, a creative think tank and a curatorial research platform. Initially conceived to support the non-profit BizArt Art Centre through structural funding in 2007, Arthub Asia has facilitated more than 110 activities in China and the rest of Asia and has become the major provider of structural support not only for artists working in China and across Asia, but also for a global community of leading curators, art professionals and producers.

Alternative Space LOOP – Korea

Devoted to defining alternative Asian art and culture by confronting Western-oriented globalisation, Alternative Space LOOP is committed to the search for young defiant emerging artists, promotion of connections between visual arts and other genres, establishment of international networks of alternative spaces, support for creative activities and better environments for exhibition. The art space, which was established in 1999, has been planning to expand its size since 2005.

Arrow Factory – Beijing

Located in a small hutong alley in Beijing’s city center, Arrow Factory is self-funded, independently run art space that can be visited 24-hours a day, 7 days a week. It is committed to presenting works that are highly contingent upon the immediate environment and responsive to the diverse economic, political and social conditions of the locality. Founded in 2008, Arrow Factory was initiated as a response to commercially defined contemporary art in Beijing, which is also increasingly confined to purpose-built art districts in the remote outskirts of the city.

Artis – Israel

With the firm belief that artists are cultural emissaries and agents of social change, Artis aims at expanding the innovative practices of Israeli artists around the world and aiding them to reach global audiences by holding cultural exhibitions and events. Since its establishment in 2004, it has been running numerous art-related programs including curatorial research trips to Israel, a grant program for international exhibitions and events, international commissions, performances, events, talks and an active website with artist profiles, articles, videos, news, and events.

Barbur - Jerusalem

Barbur – Jerusalem

Founded in 2005 at the heart of Jerusalem, Barbur is an independent nonprofit space for art and artists with the aim of being a platform for critical debate that deals with social issues while developing projects with local communities through monthly exhibitions and weekly screenings, lectures, workshops, music performances and other events.

Collective Parasol – Japan

Founded in January 2010, Collective Parasol is a private organisation for art and social-cultural activity. It is run by its artists, curators, a filmmaker, an art law specialist and an art student. It provides an open-ended platform for a wide range of projects and aims to establish a new form of “collective” that questions the solidarity, essentiality and possibility of artist collectives/communities and alternative spaces. Each member organises his or her own projects, puts together an idea with other members and collaborates with guests from a wide range of fields who are working within creative projects. The platform can take the form of a café, gallery, theater, studio, residency, meeting place for local people… the list is essentially endless. Collective Parasol is open to non-members who can use the space, equipment, and technical support.

Green Papaya Art Projects – the Phillipines

Founded in 2000, Green Papaya Art Projects is the longest running independently run creative multidisciplinary platform in the Philippines which specialises in exploring tactical approaches to the production, dissemination, research and presentation of contemporary practices in various artistic and scholarly fields. It tries to be a platform for critical intellectual exchanges and creative-practical collaboration among the artistic community.

PiST///Interdisciplinary Project Space - Istanbul

Para/Site Art Space – Hong Kong

Founded in 1996 in Hong Kong, Para/Site Art Space is devoted to bringing leading international practitioners to Asia, increasing the visibility of Hong Kong artists and facilitating East-West dialogues through an ambitious program of exhibitions, screenings, talks and events. It is a platform for artists and other art practitioners to realise their vision in relation to their immediate and extended communities with the aim of nurturing a thoughtful and creative society.

PiST///Interdisciplinary Project Space – Istanbul

PiST///Interdisciplinary Project Space is a non-profit art space in Istanbul that produces new and experimental works which explore urban environments, everyday life and public/private space conflicts through collaborative experimental work with local and international art professionals. The art space acts as a runway for local and international art professionals to land on and take off from.

Post-Museum – Singapore

Founded in Singapore in 2007, Post-Museum is an independent cultural and social space dedicated to encouraging and supporting a thinking and pro-active community through providing an open platform for examining contemporary life, promoting the arts and connecting people.

Sala-Manca + Mamuta – Jerusalem

Sala-Manca is a group of independent Jerusalem-based artists who stage performances and create videos, installations and new media works which deal with the poetics of translation (cultural, mediatic and social), with textual, urban and net contexts and with the tensions between low tech and high tech aesthetics, as well as social and political issues. Having produced and curated Heara (comment) events, it has also published the art journal (H)Earat Shulaym without any external official, political or economic support. It founded and directs Mamuta, a platform that promotes artistic experimentation as well as social and political engagement through providing studios, a residency program and production labs that facilitate exchange and dialogue between artists.

Sàn Art – Vietnam

Sàn Art is an independent, artist-run exhibition space and reading room in Ho Chi Minh City that supports the country’s thriving artist community by providing an exhibition space, residency programs for young artists, lecture series and an exchange program that invites international artists and curators to organise or collaborate on exhibitions.

This primer reading list has been selected by Adeline Ooi of Kuala Lumpur-based Rogue Art, an art consultancy group specialising in the management of art projects, exhibitions, collections and publications. Adeline will be speaking about Southeast Asian art at the Asia Art Forum to be held in Hong Kong in May 2009.

This list was first published on Arteri, a new and what looks to be a very promising blog on Malaysian and Southeast Asian art and is republished with permission from Adeline here. As Arteri explains, so much of what curators and experts know

“is acquired through fieldwork, contacts, long hours spent talking to artists, curators, historians, critics. So little of this knowledge (gossips, legends, histories, theories) has yet to be documented and written down, analysed and most importantly shared. Yet, what little that’s already published out there is really worth looking at.”

Books available on Amazon are linked. The list in chronological order:

Contemporary Art in Singapore
With Essays by Russell Storer, Gunalan Nadarajan and Eugene Tan
Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) Singapore, 2007
ISBN-13: 9789810564612
(Note: ICA Singapore is a part of LaSalle-SIA College of the Arts)

Telah Terbit (Out Now): Southeast Asian Contemporary Art Practices during the 1970s
Ahmad Mashadi
Singapore Art Museum, 2006
(Note: This is an exhibition guide and does not qualify as a book but the introduction essay for this show is insightful and really worth the read)

I Nyoman Masriadi achieved the highest prices, albeit much lower than in 2008, 3 of his works appeared in the top 10 for the sale. His not dissimilar sale-topping works (Negotiation 2009 and The Final Round 2008) showed more than 75% drop between Spring 2009 and Autumn 2008.

I Nyoman Masriadi Negosiasi

Empty seats

Half the seats were empty at the start of the thinly attended the 138 lot auction of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian art which kick-started the Sotheby’s series of 2009 Spring sales in Hong Kong. As the 18 or so grim-faced Sotheby’s staff at the telephone bank surveyed the 60 or more empty seats, there was a gluey air of tension.

The first 12 lots of the 95 contemporary works on sale, most at estimates of well under US$15,000, saw gentle bidding but thanks to much coaxing by veteran auctioneer Quek Chin Yeow, all but two ( works by Indonesian artists Eko Nugroho and Dikdik Sayahdikumullah) scraped the estimates and sales were achieved.

The room relaxed and bidding picked up for the next 20 or so lots (13-33) with particular interest shown in:

Rodel Tapaya (b 1980) Donsadat and the Magic Dog which sold over estimate for HK$90,000 (excl premium) after a tussle between 2 phone bidders and the room

M Irfan (b 1972) The Artifact of Magic which attracted 4 bidders and achieved a price of HK$235,000 (excl premium) against a top estimate of HK$180,000.

Yunizar (b 1971) Texs III sold at HK$210,000 against its higher estimate of HK$180,000.

In a dramatic twist this was followed by a run of half a dozen passes and barely-made sales. The first lot called My God offered by heavyweight Agus Suwage (b.1959 Indonesia) almost fell victim to the new twitchiness but just scraped by to achieve its lower estimate of HK$220,000.

Catalogue-featured lots

Lot 40, the first of the 5 catalogue-featured lots, Lost Notes by Rudi Mantofani, a stunning sculpture of two guitars curved to form a circle, more than met expectations by achieving a price one third higher than estimate. In a testament perhaps to the power of deeper catalogue marketing, the other featured works also did well:

lot 58 I Nyoman Masriadi‘s (b 1973 Indonesia) painting Negotiation – this acrylic featuring two cowboys facing off, turned out to be the star lot and achieved the highest price in the sale when 4 phone and 2 room bidders pushed the price up to HK$1.4m against a top estimate of $800,000. However this was a mighty fall of over 75% compared with the price achieved for a similar work The Final Round autumn 2008. Negotiation fetched just HK$1.7m (US$217,000) including premium, less than a quarter of the US$1 million price tag for the Boxers.

lot 75 Handiwirman Supatra‘s pink-painted aluminium sculpture Soap achieved a price (HK$300,000) double its top estimate. Originally conceived as a commissioned group of works for Novotel Hotel in Indonesia this was Supatra’s first large-scale sculpture project. Aside from the artist’s one-off, there are 4 versions of the work each in a unique colour.

8 is a lucky number in China and it was certainly lucky for Sotheby’s because the lot marked a turning point. After a poor 12 lot run (lots 76-87) in which there were 6 passes and the remainder just meeting the lower estimates, Ronald Ventura‘s lot 88 galvanised the room with its spray gun pre-recession-style bidding from more than a dozen bidders. The remainder of the contemporary artworks in the sale – lots 89-95 – all sold well despite having some of the highest prices in the sale (all over HK$100,000). Ahmad Zakii Anwar Silent City 8 (8 again!) sold at estimate despite a previous pass for a work located earlier in the sale. The other 6 lots by heavyweight artists – Geraldine Javier, Handiwirman Saputra, I Nyoman Masriadi and Yunizar with prices considerably higher than most of the works earlier in the sale (estimates in the HK$100,000 to HK$400,000 range) – all sold with comfortable margins over estimates.

No upsets

Other lots which drew notable interest included lot 13 Jumaldi Alfi‘s painting The Falls which saw goood bidding and achieved a price of HK$270,000 against estimate HK$230,000 and lot 75 M Irfan‘s (b 1972) Maneuver. 3 room bidders pushed up the price to HK$130,000 against its top estimate of HK$90,000.

There were no major upsets but some passes were surprising including lot 19, an untitled work by Handiwirman Saputra, lot 46 Putu Sutawijaya‘s untitled painting and lot 50 Dadang Christanto‘s work Pilgrim Project 2. Agus Suwage had 2 works in the sale, both did sell but only just.

Happy faces

The auctioneers were clearly happy and entertained the room with jaunty banter. When Kevin Ching, CEO of Asia – known for tongue in cheek bawdiness – placed a bid on Vasan Sitthiket‘s ‘American Wet Dream’, the irrepressible auctioneer Chin Yeow who jokingly refused to refer to the painting by name because it ‘is too rude’, cheekily teased his colleague saying “Not a surprise from Kevin Ching”. “What do you mean?” deadpanned Ching right back.

And happy they deserve to be. Although this sale had one of the lower sell-through rates of the Sothebys 2009 Spring sales due to an excess of cheaper works by lesser known artists, the strategy of presenting predominantly Indonesian works by preferred artists was clearly aimed to please and did please an established clientele: a small number of deep-pocketed Indonesian collectors of Chinese origin and other hard core collectors. And what might the future hold? Maybe deeper catalogue marketing, fewer works by lesser known artists and perhaps we will see a few more 8s sprinkled amongst the lot numbers next autumn.

Notes:

prices exclude buyers’ premium.

Exchange rate HK$7.7 = US$1.

All artists named are Indonesian except Ronald Ventura and Geraldine Javier from the Philippines

The art world is eyeing Hong Kong for the latest litmus test of how prices are holding up amid the global financial crisis, with experts cautiously upbeat about the future of the Asian market.The frenzied scramble to own contemporary works has fizzled quickly as economic realities have started to bite.

London felt the chill in October when two big sales fell short of previous highs just a month after a record-shattering auction of works by Damien Hirst.

Earlier this month in New York, Sotheby’s slashed prices for much-hyped contemporary art works and Francis Bacon’s 1964 “Study for Self Portrait” failed to sell in a Christie’s auction in the city.

At the beginning of October, Sotheby’s autumn sale in Hong Kong, which included modern and contemporary Asian art as well as classical works, brought in 1.1 billion Hong Kong dollars (142 million US dollars), about half of the pre-sale estimate.

In a sale of modern and contemporary Asian art at the Sotheby’s sale, 40 percent of lots remained unsold and the figures were even worse for 20th century Chinese art, with 65 percent of lots failing to find buyers.

Now attention turns back to Hong Kong, where Christie’s is set to launch its five-day autumn sale from November 29.

Art prices have adjusted down 30-50%

Anders Petterson, managing director of London-based art market research company ArtTactic.com, said the contemporary art market has already corrected significantly since hitting peaks earlier this year.

“Prices have been adjusted down 30-50 percent depending on the work and the artist. This brings us back to 2006 levels, but prices are likely to have some time to go before we have reached an equilibrium. This will also depend on how deep the recession in the United States and Europe will become,” he said.

“The correction we see in the Western art markets will spread to emerging markets, with both China and India already starting to feel the pinch.

“Upcoming sales in Hong Kong and in India will give us a better sense of the market sentiment.”

Despite the barrage of gloomy economic news and the falling prices, Jonathan Stone, Christie’s international business director for Asian art, remains upbeat about his upcoming sale.

“It’s a slightly new world we’re in compared with six months ago and I think we need to see where we are. I think overall I am cautiously optimistic.

“There are some very good works and I do believe that any time there are good works will always provide solid results,” he said, adding that price falls could make it easier for collectors to come back into the market.

Stone picks out one of the highlights of the upcoming auction in Hong Kong as being a group of works of Chinese contemporary art from the collection of American filmmaker Oliver Stone.

Another star lot is Zeng Fanzhi’s “From the Masses, To the Masses,” expected to fetch about 30 million Hong Kong dollars.

Expanding interest in Indonesian and Filipino works

For Hong Kong-based art consultant Kate Evans, it is difficult to predict which way the market is heading in the short term, although she presents a more nuanced picture of the scene.

“There is still a market for Asian art, albeit at much lower prices,” she said. “Collectors’ interest is expanding into much more affordable Southeast Asian contemporary art, particularly Indonesian and Filipino art.”

This was shown at the Sotheby’s October sale in Hong Kong, where the modern and contemporary Southeast Asian paintings sale was a high point.

In that category, Indonesian artist I Nyoman Masriadi’s “The Man From Bantul (The Final Round)” sold for almost eight million Hong Kong dollars, a world record for contemporary Southeast Asian art.

Despite the bracing economic circumstances, Hong Kong gallery owner Katie de Tilly reports that business has been brisk in the past couple of months but adds: “We know it’s going to slow down a lot.”

Value in Vietnam and Thailand

The owner of 10 Chancery Lane Gallery said there was great value in works from countries such as Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia and that the Chinese market will remain strong in the long term.

She said the price correction was “a really great opportunity to buy because important works will always be important works” and there is more room to negotiate.

Time of buying opportunities

Evans, who runs the Art Radar Asia advisory firm, agreed, saying: “I believe there is a strong case for buying now because the long-term trends support an increase in value for Asian art in particular.”

ArtTactic.com’s Petterson is also positive, saying he sees “this as a time of opportunities, there will be less competition, less hype”.

“The market will revert to focus on the art and its cultural and historical value and importance, so for the long-term player this is a buyer’s market,” he said.

FILIPINO ART OPEN AIRBillboards can be traced as far back as 4,000 years ago in Ancient Egypt in the form of a tall stone obelisk used by merchants to promote their goods. Now, thousands of years later, the billboard’s use has invariably remained the same – a tool for advertisement.

But 2nd Media – the public affairs arm of the Outdoor Advertising Association of the Philippines (OAAP) – is going to write a new chapter in billboard history with the launch of the Manila Outdoor Gallery Art Route.

“Art throughout history has inspired change by always going beyond the frame,” says Dondie Bueno, 2nd Media spokesperson, “and together with the OAAP, we aim for the Manila Outdoor Gallery Art Route to be a catalyst for change in the metro by pushing the boundaries of what billboards can be.”

Sharing a theme that highlights environmental awareness, these artworks located in key locations across the metro beginning from Commonwealth, EDSA up to NLEX, is in support of the ongoing international movement rallying for nature conservation.

“People are not used to seeing paintings on a billboard. This momentarily takes them out of their daily grind and they start to notice. Can you imagine a better way to drive your message across than to evoke reactions from passersby?” continues Bueno.

OAAP president Frank Abueva says that the Manila Outdoor Gallery Art Route is the change that the billboard industry has long been waiting for. “This will herald a new era for billboards because it has debunked all existing negative perceptions about billboards and the industry.”

Even advertisers, who have long used billboards for their products, are excited about this revolutionary event by 2nd Media and the OAAP. “It’s a very interesting idea, probably the first of its kind. As a company that’s also very active in promoting social awareness, like in this one saving the environment, this is definitely something that we support and commend,” says Suyen Lim, brand manager for Human.

Also through the Manila Outdoor Gallery Art Route, 2nd Media and the OAAP aim to raise awareness that billboards are, in fact, effective channels for communication and are not just tools for advertising. “We want these paintings and photographs on billboards to enrich and entertain people. We want them to engage in discussions about the artwork they saw in Cubao or how they liked the one in Ortigas better.”

Aside from bringing art to the people, the Manila Outdoor Gallery Art Route also complements the initiatives of the local government towards uplifting the country’s urban landscape. “Galleries often show their best artists at fairs or exhibits, and these artists who contributed their works to the Manila Outdoor Gallery Art Route are the cream of the crop and deserve no less than the biggest outdoor gallery in Asia.”

Ronald Ventura in Mapping the Corporeal at NUS Museum of Singapore studies the human body, paranoia and religious consciousness in modern societies. Ventura expresses these ‘tensions’ in the form of sculptures, assemblages and hyperrealist paintings which are created mainly in graphite on canvas.

Ronald Ventura was born in 1973 and studied painting at the Philippines College of Architecture and Fine Arts, University of Santo Tomas, Manila.

Sotheby’s autumn sales in Hong Kong were grim apart from the South East Asian sale which provided some much needed relief. The success of the sale prompted an ebullient quip from Sotheby’s entertaining auctioneer Chin Yeow : “Is there a financial meltdown out there because I am not feeling it. The banks should ask our bidders if they need money!”

The sale included Malaysian, Filipino, Singaporean and Vietnamese art but was dominated by Indonesian works. Bidding was thin for Vietnamese lots and these attracted interest mainly from Paris. In contrast the Filipino and in particular the Indonesian lots attracted fierce bidding wars from bidders on all continents.

The works which attracted most interest included those by I Nyoman Masriadi, Agus Suwage, Rudy Mantofani and FX Harsano.

Two Indonesian markets: modern/colonial and contemporary/popular

Information about Indonesian art is notoriously difficult to come by. Helen Spanjaard, a Dutch art academic specialising in Indonesian art (one of only two in the world who speak English she says), explains that there are two distinct markets for Indonesian works – the colonial/Dutch influenced body of works eg Affandi and the new generation mostly born in the seventies.

“There is established buying support for the colonial works mostly from Chinese Indonesian collectors who compete with one another to drive up prices”. There is a second much more international market for the seventies generation artists. Dr Spanjaard notes that those works which are particularly popular are reminiscent of Chinese pop art or refer to popular cultural influences such as cartoons, superheros, flat stylisation, fantasy.

This was certainly borne out in the sale. Indonesian artist I Nyoman Masriadi’s The Man From Bantul (The Final Round), 2000, lot 838, an impressive triptych of a fight painted in a flat stylised manner sold for HK$7,820,000 (US$1,000,725) after lively bidding, five times its high estimate of HK$1-1.5 million.

A number of other works by Masriadi fetched impressive prices including Petualanganku Berakhir Setelah Ketemu Ibumu (My Adventure Ended After I Met Your Mother), which sold for HK$2,900,000 (US$371,113) (lot 895, est. HK$250/350,000), and Too Small, which achieved HK$1,820,000 (US$232,905) (lot 808, est. HK$250/350,000), both bringing many times their high estimates. These works featured flat images with cartoon-style poses and speech bubbles.

Sotheby’s again set a record for the work of Rudi Mantofani (b. 1973) following the record price achieved
in its series of spring 2008 sales last season. Pohon-Pohon Langit (Sky Trees) sold for HK$3,020,000
(US$386,469), bringing almost eight times its high estimate (lot 868, est. HK$280,000 – $380,000). Mantofani is known for his surreal fantasy landscapes in which for example trees are clouds and shadows are holes.

Artist records were also broken for Dipo Andy and Jumaldi Alfi. More abstract contemporary works and by for example Yunizar, Putu Satawijaya and the moderns also attracted interest but to a lesser extent.

Filipino artists

Filipino artists who did well in this sale included Geraldine Javier, Ronald Ventura, Annie Cabigting, Yasmin Sison and Lirio Salvador.

Why is South East Asian art so popular now?

Some commentators note that there is a structural issue which is affecting the art market. Today’s buyers are more speculative than at any time in the history of art buying and that the interest in South East Asian works is coming from former buyers of Chinese art who are looking for the next hot trend. Others note that the sale was a success because prices of South East Asian art are relatively cheap compared with other markets.

While much of Hong Kong hunkered down just hours before the arrival of a typhoon on Oct. 4, the start of Sotheby’s three-day auction of modern and contemporary Asian art was buffeted by the financial storm on Wall Street. Of the 47 works that went under the hammer, more than 40% were unsold. What’s more, earnings for Sotheby’s (BID), including the auctioneer’s commission known as the “buyer’s premium,” were a paltry $15 million, accounting for just 41% of the auction house’s estimated takings for the night. Among the biggest upsets was the unsold work by India’s hot-selling artist Subodh Gupta, Untitled, which had an estimated price of $1.55 million to $2.05 million. Another big surprise: Chinese cynical realist painter Liu Wei’s triptych, The Revolutionary Family Series, failed to find a bidder willing to meet the $1.55 million suggested minimum.

As the weather deteriorated on Sunday morning, so did events in the auction hall. Only 39 out of 110 paintings from the 20th Century Chinese Art Sale found buyers, while 71 had to be packed up and shipped back to their sellers. By the afternoon session, the usual buzz at Hong Kong’s contemporary Chinese art auctions was sorely absent. At one point during the sale, the auctioneer mistook a woman covering her mouth to stifle a yawn for her wishing to bid, prompting a valiant attempt to inject some levity into the proceedings as he asked if “anyone else is yawning in the room.”

Yawns gave way to disbelief a little later when two works by white-hot Chinese artist Zhang Xiaogang went unsold. That’s a huge reversal for the Beijing-based artist, whose paintings have routinely fetched millions of dollars, well in excess of auction estimates. (His painting Bloodline: Big Family No. 1 was one of the few top lots that sold on Saturday, though the $2.97 million price was below the expected maximum.) Yue Minjun and Zeng Fanzhi, two others among the hottest-selling Chinese contemporary artists, did manage to sell, although well within the estimates.

Wall Street Fallout
You connect the dots: Wall Street goes into meltdown, and Sotheby’s auction bombs in Hong Kong. Kevin Ching, Sotheby’s CEO for Asia, tries to be optimistic about whether the two are connected. “I hope there is no immediate direct correlation between the financial market and the art market,” he says, pointing to the widely successful auction of enfant terrible Damien Hirst’s works in London within days of the collapse of Lehman Brothers. The problem with some of the Hong Kong auction, he adds, stems from overly ambitious owners trying for unreasonably high prices. “When we have [sellers] who want aggressive estimates over and above what [the] market can accept, they would have to occasionally accept the consequences, and I think that’s what happened here [Saturday] night,” Ching explains.

Still, others in Asia’s art business are certain the fallout from Wall Street is already hurting Chinese and Indian markets. In both countries, newly wealthy investment bankers and hedge fund managers helped inflate bubbles in works by local artists. For instance, in the last four years a booming Indian economy and buoyant stock market encouraged many private banks to offer fee-based services to assist clients in building portfolios of artworks sourced from galleries, auctions, and even direct sales. Fund managers say that investment bankers with their hefty bonuses helped inflate art prices by 30% to 60% above their real value, according to a gallery owner in Mumbai.

Bright Spots
Now with Wall Street in turmoil, most of the bankers who were regulars at art shows and auctions have moved out, says avid art collector Harsh Goenka, chairman of India’s diversified RPG Enterprises, which has interests in tires, power, and retail. He claims that in the last few years, around 60% to 70% of art sold in auctions and shows in India went to the new breed of investor rather than art connoisseurs. “They looked at art as a brand and made money by trading in it,” says Goenka. In the past few months, he says, painters and art dealers have been calling him up to offer their unsold works at a 30% to 40% discount.

The picture isn’t all grim, though. The mood was positively ebullient at Sotheby’s Hong Kong on Oct. 6 as buyers crammed the room for the auction of Southeast Asian contemporary paintings. Sotheby’s employees manned the phones to handle enthusiastic overseas bidding. For instance, Indonesian painter I Nyoman Masriadi had already set a personal record on the first day of the Sotheby’s auction when his huge canvas featuring Batman and Superman sitting on adjacent toilets sold for $620,000. He then surpassed that with a painting of boxers that seems part Botero, part Léger; it fetched a high $833,000. A bit later, during furious bidding for yet another Masriadi, the auctioneer exclaimed “This is really, really fun.” The room broke into applause when the work finally sold for a very respectable $307,000.

The reason for this sea change in sentiment? The prices were far more affordable than the works from China and India on sale during the weekend, and collectors seem to have finally cottoned onto the notion that Indonesian, Vietnamese, and Filipino artists represent opportunities for collectors to own great art. One work by up-and-coming Filipino painter Geraldine Javier sold for $32,000, more than three times the high estimate. An intimate portrait of a woman and child by Vietnamese painter Mai Trung Thu also sold for triple the estimate, fetching $23,000.